Monday, November 16, 2015

The last few days have brought shock and sorrow to people all
over the world. From Beirut to Paris to Baghdad, the wound is the same. These
horrendous acts are not only attacks on these respective cities, but on
humankind as a whole.

As I am writing these words, my heart aches. My heart aches
for the victims and their families. My heart also aches for the sense of
humanity that has been lost by some. The way certain communities are choosing
to deal with the issue at stake by pointing fingers at the most vulnerable, at
people who do not relate in any way to these barbaric terrorist acts and
condemn them strongly, is not the solution nor will it bring our beloved ones
back.

During this critical time, when they are using the strategy
of “divide and conquer” we must not let them fragment our sense of brotherhood
and common humanity. While some are busy blaming a religion and its 1.6 billion
adherents, or even the citizens of Middle Eastern countries, we should not
substitute our values of tolerance and compassion with the ones of hatred and
prejudice.

The world is mourning, but we should not mourn selectively;
the loss of life in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Kenya should outrage us the same
way the one in Paris did. We need to avoid hierarchizing lives over others, and
be aware of the dangerous implications it could have. Victims of these heinous
attacks, wherever they are from, had families that waited for the day they
would open the door and come back, aspirations and dreams that never saw the
light.

Seeing
how universities in France mourn the victims with a collective minute of
silence confirms one thing: we are expecting others to mourn Beirut while we
didn't even make the effort of remembering our victims with a simple collective
stance in universities. Keep nagging on social media about how the attacks in
Beirut went unnoticed, but you know what? Our spoiled youth are to blame for
this, their double standards are to blame. We always choose to point fingers at
the international community and victimize ourselves on purpose. Get rid of your
inferiority complex: when you start respecting the victims and remembering
them, then you can ask others to do so, not the other way around.

Today,
let us not be Lebanese, French or Iraqis, let us be human. Let us pray for the
people who have lost their lives, but act as well. Act in the name of humanity,
act in the name of justice, act to prevent these terrorists from striking
again.

Let
us rise above the culture of intolerance and discrimination. Let us acknowledge
that these acts are not representative of the religion of Islam, this religion
of peace and love of the other. “United we stand, divided we fall” is the only
sentence that accurately describes the stance we should adopt. Together, we can
and we will stop them.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Since one of the main problems our Lebanese society is
facing nowadays is slow internet connection, I therefore have no choice but to
complete my assignment through blogger.

I was asked to come up with an initiative concerning one
major societal problem in Lebanon, one that citizen engagement could help
solve. I have chosen the elections problem; the Lebanese population has been deprived
from their basic right of voting for their representatives in the parliament
since 2013. Elections were supposed to take place that year and the parliament
renewed for itself twice, stating that the next elections will be held in 2017,
which is two years from now. So far, few have taken action against this
violation of human rights. Approximately 40 people went to the streets only,
which is very few in order to drive positive change. The initiative that could
take place could start by a coalition of civil society and NGOs, who will try
to make the voices of the citizens be heard by putting pressure on governments
through peaceful protests, sit-ins, petitions, since there is no formal court
where the human rights infringers could be brought into account. Perhaps it
would be a positive incentive and motivation for all frustrated citizens to
join forces with civil society and go the streets to demand that their rights
be restored.

The key planners would be members of NGOs and civil society,
intellectuals from all fields of work, going from social work to engineering to
law, because unity is strength; by joining hands to overcome this unconstitutional
decision, through constructive dialogue and experience sharing, they will be
able to raise awareness in people over their rights as citizens and members of
the society in an all-encompassing way, tackling all aspects of the matter,
from administration to logistics. Target audience are all people who have the
right to vote, and therefore are immediately affected by the problem. Recruitment
will be for everyone who is not politically affiliated, and the reason is that
politically affiliated people are in favor of the extension to their leaders in
the parliament. Any person that complies with these two criterion, and who is
dedicated to serving the public good are welcome to join, whether employed or
unemployed, rich or poor, so that everyone can feel involved because it affects
all of us. The initiative could partner with media, social media users, and international
organizations whose duties are to watch over human rights such as Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch.

Techniques and tools to be used in the initiative will be a combination
of social media, which are viral platforms, fast and affordable that could
spread our mission and actions and mobilize people with its effectiveness.
Examples are Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, increasingly popular among the
Lebanese population of all ages. Other conventional tools could be newspapers,
common among people who cannot afford internet or smartphones, or even TVs and
radios, because they are able to deliver the message even to the most
vulnerable. The combination of these tools would be able to spread awareness to
all classes of society, and perhaps spark in them the will to change and
overcome the unconstitutional decisions, something they might have thought
about but never occurred to them that action could be taken in this corrupt
country. The initiative will consist of using these platforms and tools to send
parts of the constitution that the offenders broke, or even call for massive
peaceful protests or sit-ins to block the roads to the parliament.

The barriers our initiative could face are perhaps
corruption of the leaders who could bribe people to not manifest, or even the
use of force by the police facing the protesters. By having people from all
fields, the initiative would be immunized on the legal aspect, with lawyers
telling us how we can protest and which rules are present in order not to break
them, or engineers could plan where to sit in order to create the most pressure
(car traffic and so on). Opportunities could be negotiating with some
politicians that are not convinced by the extension and use their expertise to
overrule the decisions already made.

The only metric or indicator that could measure the success of
our initiative is the organization of elections before 2017, translated by an
appeal to the decision already made and overruling it. It is extremely crucial
because it’s the only way to measure the effectiveness of the initiative
because the demand is one; return the power to the people, by the people,
through elections, to bring into account the offenders of the constitution that
shapes the lives of all Lebanese. Elections are a fundamental right of each and
every citizen, which should not be, in any way, taken away from them.